


inosculation, or, that time Javert panicked and stole a small child

by visiblemarket



Category: Les Misérables (2012)
Genre: Gen, strange 'what if' scenarios idk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-11
Updated: 2015-01-11
Packaged: 2018-03-07 02:29:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,003
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3157811
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/visiblemarket/pseuds/visiblemarket
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>"Will you be like a papa to me?"</i>
</p>
<p>  <i>"No."</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	inosculation, or, that time Javert panicked and stole a small child

**Author's Note:**

> [lotus0kid](http://lotus0kid.tumblr.com/) [asked me for this like six months ago](http://morethanonepage.tumblr.com/post/91092432201/i-need-suggestions-for-what-to-do-for-javert-week) and, well. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

He is utterly, unmistakably lost.

It is his own fault; he acted rashly, on impulse, galloping through unfamiliar woods on the hope, foolish as it may have been, that he’d be able to overtake a man who’d gotten several hours worth of a head start. 

And now he is lost, and Gymont is winded, and Valjean has escaped for good after years of having been just within his grasp, all because of one a letter and a hunch better left unexplored.

All in all, not his best night.

He eases Gymont to a walk; no use now in forcing him on, not without a better sense of his surroundings.

Which are trees. Trees, and snow, and rocks. Utterly average and indistinguishable. He sighs, and almost misses the snap of a twig behind him.

Gymont, of course, does not: he whirls and stamps, kept from bolting by years of training, but just barely. He remains tense and trembling beneath Javert, nervous huffs of air clouding the air before them, even as the twig-breaker is reveled to be a child, a girl with tangled brown hair and a large wooden bucket by her side.

Javert sighs again. Precisely what he needs, at the moment. She is either lost or errant, and he hasn’t the time nor the energy for either. 

“Why are you out so late, girl?” he says, slightly scolding, though mostly just exhausted. 

She nods at the bucket beside her, then at a near-by well. Javert nods in understanding. They look at each other. Javert begins to remove his gloves, realizes, and stills his hands.

“You are from Montfermeil?"

She nods again.

Excellent. Perhaps speaking to her is not entirely a waste, then. “Do you know of an inn there? Of the innkeepers? Caring for a child, perhaps, a girl about your..."

Fear flickers through her bright blue eyes, before she drops her gaze. “It could be said they care for me, monsieur."

There is a quiver to her tone but an edge beyond it. Javert takes in the full sight of the child, her tangled hair, her filthy and tattered clothes, which are much too thin for the chill of the season, her tiny body. No obvious resemblance to the prostitute, as far as he can determine, but what reason would she have to lie? 

“I imagine it could,” he says, and she glances up at him again. "You should not speak so to strangers, child."

"What is your name, monsieur?"

"Javert," he responds, startled. "Inspector Javert. Is my name."

"I'm called Cosette." She smiles broadly; he feels compelled to smile back, but does not. "There, we are no longer strangers."

Javert must admit that there is a certain logic to that. He dismounts. Her eyes widen. 

"Are you the police?" 

"I am."

"Madame says not to talk to the police." The child scuffs her foot in the snow. "She says they cannot be trusted." She studies him carefully, blue eyes wide, and then Javert finds a tiny, cold hand curled around his own. He looks down; she smiles up at him. He looks away. 

He should pull his hand away, he knows. But her grip is stronger than expected, and he decides that, for now at the least, there is no harm in it. 

“Are you here for Madame?"

Javert looks back down at her. “No."

“Oh,” she says, quietly, but with obvious disappointment.

“But I would speak to her all the same."

“ _Oh_ ,” she says again, and Javert nods to himself. “I will take you to her. If you wish, monsieur?"

“I do, mademoiselle."

She giggles as that. He finds himself fighting a smile again. It’s very strange. 

She keeps her grip on his hand, and looks toward the bucket, which is far too big and heavy for her frame. He sighs, and reaches for it. “If I may?"

She gives the slightest of shrugs, and squeezes his hand.

He takes the bucket in his other hand; he tries to keep hold of Gymont's reins as well, but it's unduly burdensome. He sighs; there's nothing else for it. He puts the bucket down. 

"May I?" he says, trying to gentle his voice. He is uncertain as to whether or not it works, but the girl stays still as he wraps an arm around her waist and hoists her up into the saddle. Her lip trembles. He sighs, and sends up a brief, desperate prayer that she will not cry. 

"It's high." Her voice is soft, and her hands twitch.

"It is," he says, brusquely, and then shakes his head; that will not help, he knows. "Hold there." He takes one of her small hands and presses it to Gymont's mane. 

"But, monsieur!" she says, louder than she's spoken before. "Will it not hurt him?" 

"Hurt him?"

"To pull his hair!" she makes a quick, aborted gesture at her own. Javert begins to understand.

"He will not feel it," he says, and gives a quick pat to Gymont's broad neck. “Not as you or I would."

"Do you promise?"

"I do."

She smiles a little, and mimics his quick pat to Gymont’s mane.

They make their way through the woods in near-silence, with only the soft, occasional direction from the girl.

*

The inn is of the average, disreputable sort usually found in a town of this size and economic condition. Not the sort of place any decent woman would leave her child, that’s for certain. Not any sort of place where a child might _become_ a decent woman. It’s a shame, really, though absolutely none of his concern.

The girl points him to the stable. She is still when Javert settles Gymont into a stall, and tenses as he lifts her from the horse and places her on the ground again. She mumbles a quick thank you, pulls the bucket from his hand, and drags it away. She stumbles a little from the weight and sloshes water onto the snow-covered path back to the inn. Javert follows her closely, opening the door for her and waving her ahead.

They’re barely through the door when a haggard, brunette woman rushes to them. Or, more precisely, to the girl: “Where have you been, you lazy little—“ she stops short and stares at Javert. “Officer! What may I do for you?"

“Are you the owner of this…” he lets the pause stretch, as he watches the girl scurry to a dark, apparently familiar corner beneath a set of stairs. “Establishment?"

The woman cocks her head. “My husband, monsieur. Though he is, a the moment…” she takes a breath, and her chest heaves. Her voice drops to a whisper: “Indisposed."

“Is that your child?” he says, nodding at where the girl had been.

She seems startled. “Yes?"

“You would lie to an officer of the law?"

“Monsieur, I would not dare to—"

“This child is the daughter of a…” he pauses, glances at the girl; she is trembling, though from the cold, the excitement, or fear, he does not know. “A woman. Of my acquaintance.”

“I meant only that she is _like_ our child, to us, my husband, and I—"

"She has paid you to keep the girl in good health,” he says, removing the letter from inside his coat. “You have failed at this."

“Captain—“ she coos.

“Inspector,” he says, distantly. "It says here she has been ill?” he holds out the letter; the woman does not take it, but nods, rapidly, in a very distracting manner.

“Yes, quite ill. It was very sudden, monsieur, and medicines, you can imagine, are so—"

“Perhaps her walks in the freezing night air are the cause."

“Pardon?"

“Of the illness. Perhaps it could be avoided by preventing such trips in the future."

“Perhaps, Monsieur Inspector,” she says, through a very brittle smile. 

“I suppose I must inform you that her mother will no longer be able to provide for her care."

The woman narrows her eyes. “Why?"

“She is dead."

The woman brings a hand to her mouth, as if in shock, from which she recovers quickly enough to approach him with wide, sad eyes. “That is truly unfortunate, monsieur. She is a darling, sweet, child, as you…” she glances about, apparently realizing for the first time that Cosette has left her side, but keeps walking. “As you must have realized. We could not _bear_ to be parted from her. Perhaps monsieur would like to continue our…” she is close enough now to rest a light hand on Javert’s arm. Javert takes a step back. Undaunted, she follows, and grasps his arm a little more firmly. “Arrangement?"

He stares down at her, carefully grasps her wrist, and dislodges her grip on him. “I would not impose such a duty on you, madame. I will take the child—"

“Take the child!"

“And see that more suitable arrangements are made for her."

The woman throws her head back and laughs. “More suitable arrangements! For that spoiled, wretched, little—"

“Come, Cosette,” he says, waving at the still, stunned shape beneath the stairs. “Gather your things. We are leaving."

The woman grabs his arm again, hard enough to bruise. “We are owed—"

“ _Madame_."

“We are owed! For her care, for her upkeep, for—“ Javert pulls out of her grip again, and finds Cosette at his side, trembling again. She pulls at his sleeve, but he ignores it.

“That is not my concern."

“Not your concern! You would come, steal away this poor, defenseless child! Expect me to let you take her from the only family she has known! What nonsense!"

“You have no claim on her."

“No claim! Her mother—"

“Is dead."

Her eyes narrow again. “My husband won’t stand for this."

“Then rouse him, madame, or else shut up.”

She huffs again, and throws her hands in the air. “Go on, then! Take the brat! See what good it does you!"

*

He’s outside in the falling snow before it hits him: what good _will_ it do him, to take the child?

Valjean is still out there, perhaps on his way to this very inn, but he cannot stay. Not with a child he has no real claim on himself, not with that _woman_ waiting to expose him. 

And that is if Valjean _had_ wanted to come to Montfermeil; perhaps Javert had been wrong about that, been a fool to think the man would do something so sentimental and foolish as to fetch the girl, to keep his promise to dead whore when his own freedom was on the line.

No, apparently it is _Javert_ who is that foolish. He looks down at the girl, whose fingers are still tightly woven with his, and sighs. Taking her was impulsive, foolish, and a mistake, he realizes, but it was _his_ mistake, and now he is the one who must rectify it. He lifts her onto Gymont’s back, in front of the saddle. 

“Hold on,” he says, briskly, and she does, tightly curling her fingers in the horse’s black mane. He leads Gymont outside before mounting; Cosette sits quite still in front of him, and remains utterly silent until they are well out of town.

When she speaks, it is in a clear, hopeful tone: “Where are we going?"

“Paris,” he says, because those are his orders, ultimately, and it’s closer than returning to Montreuil-sur-Mer. “We must find you a home."

“With you?"

He blinks. “What?"

She hesitates, and then: "Will you be like a papa to me?"

"No."

"Oh," Cosette says in response, soft and strained. He sighs.

"I will be your guardian. Till a more…suitable arrangement may be made."

"What does that mean?" 

"Suitable?" He casts about for an answer she will understand. "Appropriate. Where you are meant to be."

"Oh," she says again, and, after a moment, leans back against his chest.

A strange warmth curls within him, and blooms between his lungs.

He clucks Gymont into a steady trot. He's startled to hear Cosette imitate the sound, and finds himself smiling before he can think better of it.

*

**Author's Note:**

> [If you enjoyed this fic, lotus0kid wrote me a lil' sequel that is ON POINT and adorable, so.](http://lotus0kid.tumblr.com/post/119516032303/lm-la-demoiselle-javert)


End file.
